


accidental heroism

by usoverlooked



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Past Child Abuse, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/pseuds/usoverlooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cisco calls for help saving the day.</p><p>“You do owe me, for the whole neck-bomb incident,” Cisco says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	accidental heroism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [easternepiphany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternepiphany/gifts).



> Lisa Snart for series regular, please.
> 
> (also, for Kate, whom I love dearly.)
> 
> Possible tw for briefly mentioned age difference relationship, nothing major, but just fyi~

For Lisa’s whole life, she has been three things - daughter, a sister, a criminal. Everything else changes - the boys she dates, the shitty jobs she works, all of it. Those three, for better or worse, stick.

Then her dad dies, her brother moves away, and Cisco calls for help saving the day, and she’s not too sure of any of those things anymore.

 

“You do owe me, for the whole neck-bomb incident,” Cisco says, shrugging his shoulders up. November’s snuck up on Central City and he’s shivering in a jacket while Lisa is glad for her leather. He’s wearing a scarf with dogs printed all over it. Lisa’s more than fascinated by it. So she decides to help. Mostly due to the scarf.

“That’s what the kiss was for,” she replies, grinning her best cat meet canary grin. Cisco blushes a little, squares his shoulders.

“No, it wasn’t,” he says, decisive. He’s right, but Lisa doesn’t really like that he knows that. So she hums a little note.

“Whatever helps you sleep,” she says. She’s trying to think of some innuendo when Cisco groans.

“Look, I’ll build you some – I don’t know, something _cool_ if you’ll help,” Cisco says. He talks with his hands, Lisa notices absently. She used to flinch around people who did that – thanks dad, she would always think – but trained herself out of it. For some stupidly sentimental reason, she can’t imagine Cisco would ever have made her flinch anyways.

“Fine, it’s been boring since Len left anyways,” Lisa says. She steps onto her bike, tries very hard not to be charmed by the fist pump Cisco does. She tosses her helmet to him when he’s done and he nearly drops it. He blinks at her and she grins again. “You want a ride?”

Cisco nods, Adam’s apple bobbing, then he climbs on the bike behind her.

 

When Lisa was fourteen, she dated this guy. He was seventeen, which was bad news enough, she knows now, but he also used to call her Snart, almost exclusively. The whole thing didn’t last long, just long enough for her to learn how shitty guys could be, and it ended with Lenny breaking his nose, but sometimes she still looks him up online.

He’s a mechanic, over in a suburb, and has a cute little kid with some hair stylist. He’s normal, even if his nose is just a tinge crooked. Lisa looks at his nose, wonders what his girlfriend and daughter know about it. The guy wasn’t – he wasn’t the worst guy. Never hit her, never did anything she didn’t want. But she was a kid and he went to the community college the next year. So, sometimes, Lisa wonders if he tells people about that. She can’t imagine he does.

The next year, she dated guys who were sixteen, seventeen, fifteen, all closer to her own age. But that first one – she thinks sometimes someone should’ve stopped that. Len was in juvie for the first part, so he only got to deal with the fall-out. Afterwards, when he broke his nose, Len had just glared and told her she should’ve known better.

“Look at dad. You need to go for the opposite of whatever guy you think you like, Lise,” Lenny had said. He was right, but Lisa dated a few douchebags just to spite him for it anyways.

Lisa thinks of that again, not for the first time, when Cisco pulls his hair up in a ponytail. The ponytail holder is pink and when she raises an eyebrow, he just shakes his head.

“Cait got mad that I kept taking hers, so she’s started using pink to try to stop me,” he says. He grins, triumphant. “It doesn’t work.”

 

It turns out someone is kidnapping kids. The little Flash fanclub thinks it is someone that Len used to run around with, so they figure she might know them. The old man explains all this. Lisa watches Caitlin while he talks. The other scientist glares at Cisco, only spurred on by Cisco’s focus on something on his computer. Lisa snorts out a laugh, watches Caitlin’s back go ramrod straight at the sound.

“Are you going to help or are you going to scuttle back to – to wherever you were?”

“I’ll help,” Lisa answers. Caitlin seems flummoxed on what to say to that. Lisa dropped out of school when she was seventeen, but before that she existed outside the cliques. Or, her clique didn’t care enough to matter to anyone who teased anyone else. She can imagine where Caitlin fell in all that though.

“Told ya,” Cisco mutters, just loud enough for Lisa to hear. His eyes flick up to her, a hint of a smile accompanying them. Lisa thinks it shouldn’t make her smile, but it really does.

“Right, good, then, let us begin,” the old man says, clapping his hands. Lisa watches Cisco for a moment longer, before turning back to the old man. He talks with his hands too, but she’s surprised to find she rather likes that too.

 

They give her a communicator. It’s small and her hair mostly hides it. Cisco’s off working on something and the old man has shaky hands, so Caitlin gets the honor of putting it in Lisa’s ear. Lisa sits very still on the stool, watches the switch from grumpy to clinical. The process takes seconds and Caitlin steps back to the computer to test it.

“So are you jealous or do you just not like me?” Lisa asks. Caitlin doesn’t look up, just makes some noise in her throat. Lisa kicks her feet against the rungs of the stool. “C’mon, I listen, I know you have that boyfriend, but Cisco and you are joined at the hip. It’s okay, I won’t tell.”

“Husband,” Caitlin’s voice is too sharp. Lisa waits and then the other woman looks up. “And he’s dead. So I guess you don’t listen very well.”

Lisa nods. Apologizing feels like the wrong move in every way. “So, you just don’t like me then, I guess.”

Caitlin huffs, something like a laugh, and when Lisa looks up, her face is like she’s surprised by the sound. Caitlin shakes her head. “I just don’t trust you. Cisco likes you though.”

“Gee, tell me more,” Lisa coos. Caitlin’s face goes hard again, the laugh from earlier gone as suddenly as it happened.

“He’s a good guy. Not like me and the rest of us, we’re good with this science and all, but Cisco, he’s-“

“He’s nice,” Lisa finishes for her. Caitlin peers at her, then smiles, just the teensiest bit, before nodding. It seems like she thinks that Lisa gets it, which makes Lisa squirm a little. She stands. “Aren’t nice guys _fun_?”

The question has the desired effect. Caitlin clenches her jaw and motions for Lisa to leave the lab. Lisa makes sure to put a little extra roll in her hips as she goes. Behind her, she can practically feel the glare. It feels a lot more comfortable than her approval.

 

Cisco tells her to be careful, before she goes. It throws her off a little, which is probably why she ends up slugging Jack Donaldson before The Flash shows up. It could also be that he’s literally pulling some kid’s piggy-tails, but whatever.

The long and short of it is – the Flash gets there late. She was supposed to wait, just collect information, but Jack’s stupid as stupid can be. So he took her to where he where he was keeping the kids, wanting to show off for the Golden Glider and all. He calls her that and the name crawls over her skin in a way it never has before. The newscasters always say it in a matter-of-fact way and Leonard and Mick always say it like it’s some cute nickname, and the only other person who has used it is Cisco and he – well, she doesn’t mind the way he says it either.

So, he calls her Golden Glider and tugs out a kid like stealing rich kids from their bed is supposed to impress her and so she ends up breaking his nose. It’s the family curse, probably.

It turns out that attacking the head guy at a kidnapping ring without any back-up is a plan with a few faults. Most of those faults are guns. So, Lisa gets a bullet in her shoulder, right next to the scar from the bottle and it’s almost funny really. The Flash does show up and Lisa can hear him taking out the rest of Jack’s goons. The little girl with the piggy-tails stares at her, brow furrowed in confusion.

“This is where heroics get you, kid,” Lisa says, shaking her head. The little girl nods solemnly and Lisa laughs at that. Her shoulder hurts but before she can really whine about it, she’s being moved.

“Cisco’s going to be so mad,” The Flash says as he carries her. It’s the last thing she hears before she blacks out, which as far as statements go, it’s not the worst thing to hear.

 

Lisa expects to wake up in STAR Labs. Instead, she’s on someone’s pull-out couch, a crocheted blanket over her and a bandage on her shoulder. She’s also wearing a STAR labs shirt, but at least her own pants. When she tries to stand, Cisco comes barreling in.

“Whoa, people with bullet wounds stay seated,” he says, one hand out to stop her. Lisa raises an eyebrow. He waves his hand. “Unless – just, I mean, you can stay. Your doctor said you shouldn’t move much and I’m making arroz con leche.”

This all spills out like Cisco is afraid she’ll leave if he stops talking. She leans back on the couch to placate him and Cisco grins. His smile always takes up his whole face, Lisa notices, not for the first time.

“If you’re going to feed me, you’re doing better than the last four guys I dated,” she says. Cisco scratches at the back of his neck and she notices his apron. It has a picture of him and the Black Canary printed on it. “Should I be jealous?”

Cisco looks down, then startles. He tugs the apron off, running back into the kitchen.

“Pretend you didn’t see that, she’d kill me,” he calls.

When he returns, he brings food. Lisa sits cross-legged, as best she can in her pants. Leather is good for many things, but comfort is not chief among them.

“I have, uh, you could borrow sweats,” Cisco says. She looks up and he’s blushing. Lisa bites back a smile. It’s too soft a thing, she can feel that before the smile even happens. Still, she agrees, and he points her in the direction of the bathroom. There’s a pair of sweat pants set next to the sink. Something about it, the forethought of it, makes Lisa want to jump out the window and run. But her shoulder hurts and Cisco’s cooking smelled good so – so she stays.

“Don’t count on this being a regular thing,” Lisa says when she takes the plate from Cisco. Cisco grins.

“Whatever you say, Goldie,” he says. He looks proud of the nickname, or maybe at the fact that she’s staying. Either way it’s a nice look at him.

“So who stitched me up? Because I was really hoping you’d buy me a drink before you got me shirtless first,” she says, mostly to fluster him. It doesn’t work nearly well enough.

“Caitlin handled it. Ba- The Flash made me wait outside,” Cisco says. He moves his own food around his plate. “He thought I was acting a little nervous.”

“I’m a tough girl, Cisco, I can handle a couple bullets,” she teases. Cisco shrugs.

“Guess I can’t,” he says. Something about it shuts her up. Lisa sets the plate on his coffee table, leans over.

Their last kiss was better, she thinks, more exciting. But when he grins after she pulls away, there’s something nice about this one too.

 

That night she does leave. She can’t help it, she’s still a Snart. When she goes, she leaves his sweatpants behind, takes the STAR Labs shirt. She also leaves him a note.

 

_Cisco,_

_You still owe me for saving the day. Maybe two gadgets for getting shot in the process. Give me a call when you’ve got something good – gadget or otherwise_

_Lisa_

 

Cisco texts her two hours later, reminding her that she’ll need to visit Caitlin for her arm, says Caitlin’s even starting to warm up to her. Then asking how she feels about Italian food and figure skates.

Lisa smiles at her phone as she hops onto her motorcycle. Maybe figuring out who she is now won’t be so bad, she thinks. She’s pretty sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me @masonjo.


End file.
